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I swear it was an accident. For two weeks, I flew the DJI Phantom 4 as often as possible, to learn about its quirky but impressive feature set. When it came time for the final test—seeing how obstacle avoidance worked at high speeds—it slipped my mind that the technology doesn’t work at all at high…
Instead of worrying about whether your throw pillows complement the colors in a room, head on over to Etsy where PebblePlush has a created a set of 12 pillows that look like the planets and other celestial bodies in our solar system. Science matches any decor, and you might even learn something. In addition to…
We think of CES as the time for all the major TV announcements, but more and more companies are holding back their big stuff until later in the year. See Vizio waiting until March to announce a new lineup of TVs priced to sit between their budget and high-end reference sets. But the real kicker…
Some of us prefer to relax with activities that turn our brains to goo, while others like to kick back with a real challenge. That’s why puzzles exist, and other brain twisting nightmares like these impossibly complex mazes that took their creator over seven years to draw by hand. The original, created by a Mr.…
Yesterday, it came to light that the FBI may no longer need Apple to unlock the San Bernardino iPhone. The two sides were due to meet in court again today, but the hearing has been delayed. The news that the FBI may not need Apple’s help saw the courts quickly grant a two-week pause while…
Since yesterday’s Apple event, your thoughts have probably been consumed by a single, nagging concern: What the hell does SE stand for anyway? BGR points out that Jason Cipriani, who was at the Apple event yesterday, claims on Twitter that Apple VP Phil Schiller says the SE in iPhone SE stands for Special Edition: Not…
These colorful maps of Mars are the most accurate depiction of how gravity varies around the Red Planet. Created by measuring subtle variations in the gravitational field experienced by NASA spacecraft as they zip past the planet, the images allow us to understand what lurks inside better than ever. The map was created using data…
Hidden amongst the excitement of releasing a two-year-old phone today, Apple also revealed another, far less exciting problem: a USB-C to Lightning cable, finally fixing a unique and stupid problem for the one percent. Up until now, if you spent $1500 on a Retina Macbook, and $600 on an iPhone, there was no good way…
IPv4, the internet address system born out of the birth of the internet, serves as a cautionary tale to always plan ahead: no one thought there would ever be more than 4.3 billion devices connected to the internet, only to be proved horribly wrong 30 years later. But YouTube planned ahead. Tom Scott explains the…
To turn a plate of metal into something you can actually use takes so many different tools and so much time to do. Even for something as simple as a bottle opener, you need to figure out a way to pierce the metal, to hammer the hole wider, to bend it to create a usable…
Google Glass has thus far been a flop for regular people doing normal things. But for more boring tasks enhancing productivity and increasing profit, there’s still promise. A report from Electrek claims that Tesla is using the new Enterprise Edition headsets at its Fremont factory. The report joins a few dots to conclude that Tesla…
Richard III is best known as the eponymous villain in one of Shakespeare’s plays, and second best known for having his body discovered in a car park in 2012. The remains were re-interred in a suitably sober fashion, but now you can get a 3D glimpse at what the king’s original grave looked like. People…
Pompeii has the best press, but the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD also buried the town of Herculaneum. Charred scrolls were recovered from the town library in 1752, and Italian scientists just discovered it might be possible to use X-ray technology to read them. Their findings were published recently in the Proceedings of…
First it was Boaty McBoatface. Now it’s… Planey McPlanerson? I don’t know why, but for some reason, everyone wants to crowdsource the names for multi-million dollar projects. Today the US Air Force even got in on the act. What would you name America’s newest bomber? I suspect this will go about as well as Boaty…
Most NYC subway riders are pretty blasé when panhandlers hit them up for cash between stations. When a panhandler announced he was collecting funds to build a time machine, riders chuckled at the odd request—until another man boarded the train and announced he was the inventor’s future self. He implored them not to give any…
Last Saturday, Los Angeles was treated to the dramatic arrival of the Skyslide, a 45-foot glass tube that will soon allow civilization’s braver souls to peacefully glide along the exterior of the city’s US Bank Tower—1,000 feet in the air. After being trucked to downtown LA from the fabricator in nearby Orange County, the Skyslide…
It’s absolutely no surprise that blockbuster movies rely so heavily on special effects and CG all the time now. When the effects are good, it just makes more sense for the fictional world they are building and the shots they are making. But it will forever be hilarious to see the actors act out in…
Apparently it was a busy weekend for the FBI. The agency was all set to face off with Apple on Tuesday over the unlocking of terrorist Syed Farook’s phone. But it now says that an “outside party” approached them on Sunday with a way to possibly unlock the phone. TLDR: They might not need Apple…
A former State Department employee will spend 57 months in prison for a “sextortion” cyberstalking crime that sounds like an SVU sweeps-week plot, only weirder and more awful. While working in the US Embassy in London, administrative support worker Michael C. Ford passed time on the job by sending phishing emails to thousands of people.…
There’s a photo currently swirling around the great big toilet bowl of social media that supposedly shows President Obama in Cuba. He’s pointing and smiling at an illustration of a naked Donald Trump. An illustration of Donald Trump sporting a micropenis, no less. But it’s completely fake. To make things even weirder, it’s a photoshop…
